Life at Elvie; Meaningful work, Exceptional People

We're Elvie. We create smart products, new solutions, and a fair few taboo-busting conversations while we’re at it. Founded by Tania Boler in 2013, we develop extraordinary innovations designed to improve women’s lives. It's a fascinating and challenging area that requires us to solve problems that no one else has ever tackled before.

At Elvie, you’ll be surrounded by people who want to improve everything and everyone around them. People who are passionate about our mission. People who are driven to solve problems and constantly consider the best ways to improve the health and wellbeing of women.

Find out more about life at Elvie here.

We're deeply proud of our values, which are intrinsic to the way we behave every day. We take them seriously because we want our culture to thrive:

• We make an impact: We’re mission-driven and not afraid to break boundaries. We relentlessly focus on going the extra mile to solve problems.
• We’re fearless innovators: We are passionate, curious, and data-driven. We continuously embrace change and innovation.
• We’re in it together: we fail and learn fast — always as one team — and have fun along the way. We stay authentic and embrace our differences.

Did you know?

In some regions our amazing products are considered to be medical devices. This means we maintain our Medical Device quality management system in compliance with ISO 13485:2016, to support the development of our groundbreaking products

About the role:

The newly created Procurement Lead role will be the number two to the Head of Procurement and will manage a small multi-skill team of commercial professionals in building a procurement op model and manufacturing supplier base that matches up to our game changing and revolutionary products and brand. This crucial new role will:-

• Have procurement accountability for two Flagship product categories consisting of our revolutionary award winning maternal wellness products (inc Elvie Trainer) and our expansion into a brand new high growth category with a combined manufacturing spend of around $30m in Year 1
• Hold oversight for the electronics supply chain and strategy across all of our electronic products
• Own the Procurement excellence strategy and roadmap across (i) MI and Reporting; (ii) Contract manufacturing management best practice; and (iii) Cost engineering strategy definition and execution
• Drive the supply side commercial success of business critical products by optimising Cost of Goods Sold (COGS) and building cross functional business cases that will reduce Elvie’s TCO
• Own internal Procurement and Manufacturing business performance reporting to the Elvie ELG (Extended Leadership Group), building senior leader consensus and support for the procurement vision as well as championing the value of our strategic partners

Okay, we’ve waffled long enough. So let’s get to the good bit: You.

As Procurement Lead, you would sit within the 35 person Operations function at Elvie reporting to the Head of Procurement and one level removed from the COO who sits on the Elvie executive team. Operations at Elvie covers S&OP, Procurement and Manufacturing, Logistics and Fulfilment, Customer Care and IT.

Procurement is a well established team of 8 with responsibility for how we show up to our suppliers and how our suppliers show up to us. We have a mix of embedded and early stage strategic supplier relationships. Delivery from our team is well acknowledged and respected but we’re heavily reliant on manual processes and individual knowledge; these have served us well in our first 10 years as Elvie but as we grow and mature our approach to procurement and our strategic suppliers needs to improve. The newly created Procurement Lead role is an investment that will help us realise that vision.

We see this role as the natural successor to the Head of Procurement and you will be heavily invested in and coached to fulfil that potential. We’re looking for a talented, kind, honest, driven professional with a laser focus on achieving results through a team and building consensus and engagement along the way. Being invested in our mission to empower women is absolutely essential as well.

If this sounds like you then please read on…

Location: Hybrid working; a mix of working from our Bristol or London office & working remotely

Employment type: Permanent (please note, you must have the right to work in the UK)

What you’ll be doing at Elvie:

Transformation Initiatives:

1. Launching a brand new flagship product category via a joint development and manufacturing model
2. Establishing genuine procurement operations excellence across MI, Reporting, Supplier Management and Cost Engineering
3. Unpick Elvie from a dependent and underperforming manufacturing partnership for one of our flagship products

Functional Strategy:

As number 2 to the Head of Procurement, this role will play a prominent role in setting and achieving our functional strategy:-

1. In the short term, a primary focus is the deployment of a 'Virtual Factory Team' model where procurement rally the cross functional internal and CM side teams together as a single effective operation and setting the cross team governance, MI and dashboards that generates operational grip
2. In the medium term we want to unlock more value from our strategic partners, paid and unpaid, whether from data and insight, technical knowledge transfer/support, TCO optimisation and more
3. In the long term we seek a procurement function and manufacturing supply chain that is a genuine competitive advantage for our products across the lenses of quality, cost, risk, resilience, flexibility and innovation
4. Alongside the above, craft a cost engineering strategy that is aligned to the Elvie design and engineering methodology, that has focus, deliverables and well-reasoned financial targets
5. Play a leading role in defining our manufacturing ESG strategy and roadmap and championing the inclusion of ESG considerations in every are of procurement’s accountability

Execution:

This player manager role will own direct strategic delivery alongside delivering important results via team members:-

1. Build long term (5-10 year) collaborative and intelligent relationships with strategic suppliers that help us bring our latest game changing female-first products to market and win. You’ll be the lynchpin between our internal design/delivery teams and the manufacturing partner(s),
2. Manage the in life manufacturing and procurement relationship leading the Virtual Factory Team from Elvie, driving continuous cost improvement, manufacturing excellence and innovation
3. Support direct reports in delivering individual projects and role requirements
4. Drive value conscious unit price and resilient supplier and component decisions on New Product Development (NPD) projects, deploying cost engineering and quality procurement methodology
5. Consolidate our understanding and management of electronics sourcing and the resulting financial liabilities to support risk conscious decision making in production and NPD electronics design decisions

Team Leadership:

1. Lead a small talented group of direct reports across Procurement, Data and Reporting and Cost Engineering to realise our potential as a strategic, proactive and value delivery focused function
2. Provide target coaching and technical development support to direct reports
3. Support non-reports within the procurement team in deploying agreed upon procurement excellence initiatives

What we are looking for:

First and foremost we want people with an authentic desire and enthusiasm to work within an activist and purpose led scale up organisation committed to bettering the lives of women. Beyond that…

• A strategic thinker who revels in complexity and challenge
• A wonderful leader with prior line management experience, who sets a meaningful vision, equips team members to realise their potential and provides a clear picture of what good looks like
• There’s no set years of experience we expect but you do need to be an established senior procurement professional with proven capabilities in guiding and influencing, challenging and resolving complex challenges and disputes internally and with suppliers
• Manufacturing industry managing OEM/ODM/CM partners is highly sought given the remit of this role in areas such as product manufacturing, electronics, far east sourcing and product cost engineering
• A natural mindset of process and governance excellence, able to translate problems and risks into an improvement delivery plan as we iterate our partner management activity
• A gifted, collaborative communicator across all communication channels
• An eye for data and MI - whilst this role won’t do the heavy lifting it’s crucial that you can wrestle with complex data challenges and provide clear, correct direction to team members who will deploy the MI and governance mechanisms

Desirable Skills:

• This role has a global remit so secondary language skills are a real bonus - of particular interest would be Chinese and Spanish
• Prior Electronics category experience will only be an advantage
• Prior Cost Engineering experience would be a bonus but is not a prerequisite

We're on an exceptional journey. And we can offer you a genuinely purpose-led career with a culture built on trust, autonomy, and flexibility. In addition, we'll give you:

• 9 Day Fortnight - for our full time employees we work 9 days every Fortnight with every other Friday as a non-working day for you to spend as you wish!
• Lots of flexibility: whether it’s working from home, doing the school run, or life admin, we understand that flexibility is essential, and we trust you to do the right thing for you and us
• Share options: we want everyone to have a stake in our success
• 25 days’ annual leave, plus bank holidays
• 8 extra life leave days; getting married, moving house, menopause or just things that you can’t put a label on that matter to you
• 5=10 leave: 10 days’ additional leave on your 5th and 10th years of service!
• £100 contribution to your home working set up to spend as you see fit
• An annual personal development allowance of £200 and unlimited access to our learning and development platform, Learnerbly
• Generous parental leave policies; maternity & adoption (16 weeks at full pay, then 8 weeks paid at 75% followed by 15 weeks at SMP rate.), paternity/partner (6 weeks at full pay to take at any point during the first year of your child’s life), shared parental leave
• Healthcare plans, life insurance, and an employee assistance program for you and your family
• A tax-efficient group pension scheme
• Group income protection; protect your salary if you get sick
• A free Elvie trainer for you to keep or give away when you join
• Generous employee and friends & family discounts on Elvie products
• Wellbeing support from YuLife and access to SmartHealth app with unlimited GP appointments for you and your family, plus various well-being initiatives throughout the year
• Lovely offices in great locations, with drinks and snacks provided, along with fun social events

What you can expect after you’ve applied:

A member of our recruitment team will reach out to you after they have reviewed your application. You must ensure your application is completed correctly, and we strongly encourage you to add a cover letter or note to let us know why Elvie’s the right fit for you. We do often receive a large number of applications for our roles, please don’t let visibility of this deter you from applying. We review and aim to respond to every application.

We would like to get to know you through your background, attitude, experience and understand your motivation to work with us. Our interview process varies depending on the position, but it typically looks like this:

• 30-minute video call with one of our recruiters
• 30-45 minute video call with the hiring manager
• 45-60 minute video interview with the team (some positions may require you to complete a task/presentation)
• For some positions, there may be an additional interview with one of our senior leadership team

This is an exciting time to join Elvie. You’ll have a voice, make an impact, and have the opportunity to mould your role. So be ready to learn, have fun, and be inspired by our passionate, talented team — and having a sense of humour helps too. 😉

Belonging at Elvie

At Elvie, we believe having diverse teams in which everyone can be their authentic self is key to our success. We encourage people from all backgrounds to apply and we don't discriminate based on race, colour, religion, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, national origin, genetics, marital status, disability or age.

If you need any support with your application, please get in contact with us: elvie@jobs.workablemail.com or 0203 884 7223.

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